


The Sea at Four Winds

by Mike Overby (lethargilistic)



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: F/F, Same-Sex Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28183557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethargilistic/pseuds/Mike%20Overby
Summary: An alternate telling of "Anne's House of Dreams" where Anne shirley has moved to Four Winds alone to become a novelist. At the shore, she meets the mysterious Leslie Moore and they become close. Over the summer Anne spends writing the Life Book of Captain Jim, they realize they're in love.
Relationships: Leslie Moore & Anne Shirley, Leslie Moore/Anne Shirley
Kudos: 1





	The Sea at Four Winds

## 1: Leslie Moore

"I'm going for a walk to the outside shore tonight," Anne told the canines Gog and Magog one October evening. There was no one else to tell. Anne had her little domain in the speckless order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, and felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience. Many and delightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with the dogs, sometimes with Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life with their rainbows. She loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and the silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to this shore she hied herself tonight.

There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three days. Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor. Now it was over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock in a splendid white turmoil—the only restless thing in the great, pervading stillness and peace.

"Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress for," Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood. Presently she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.

"I'm going to dance and sing," she said. "There's no one here to see me—the seagulls won't carry tales of the matter. I may be as crazy as I like."

She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their spent foam. Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had been a witness to her dance and laughter.

The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock. She was looking straight at Anne with a strange expression—part wonder, part sympathy, part—could it be?—envy. She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair, more than ever like Browning's "gorgeous snake," was bound about her head with a crimson ribbon. She wore a dress of some dark material, very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk. Her hands, clasped over her knee, were brown and somewhat work- hardened; but the skin of her throat and cheeks was as white as cream. A flying gleam of sunset broke through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair. For a moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified—all its mystery, all its passion, all its elusive charm.

"You—you must think me crazy," stammered Anne, trying to recover her self-possession. To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of childishness—she, Miss Published Author, with all the dignity of the literati to keep up—it was too bad!

"No," said the girl, "I don't."

She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her manner slightly repellent; but there was something in her eyes—eager yet shy, defiant yet pleading—which turned Anne from her purpose of walking away. Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.

"Let's introduce ourselves," she said, with the smile that had never yet failed to win confidence and friendliness. "I am Anne Shirley—and I live in that little white house up the harbor shore."

"Yes, I know," said the girl. "I am Leslie Moore—Mrs. Dick Moore," she added stiffly.

Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement. It had not occurred to her that this girl was married—there seemed nothing of the wife about her. And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had pictured as a commonplace Four Winds housewife! Anne could not quickly adjust her mental focus to this astonishing change.

"Then—then you live in that gray house up the brook," she stammered.

"Yes. I should have gone over to call on you long ago," said the other. She did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having gone.

"I wish you _would_ come," said Anne, recovering herself somewhat. "We're such near neighbors we ought to be friends. That is the sole fault of Four Winds—there aren't quite enough neighbors. Otherwise it is perfection."

"You like it?"

" _Like_ it! I love it. It is the most beautiful place I ever saw."

"I've never seen many places," said Leslie Moore, slowly, "but I've always thought it was very lovely here. I—I love it, too."

She spoke, as she looked, shyly, yet eagerly. Anne had an odd impression that this strange girl—the word "girl" would persist—could say a good deal if she chose.

"I often come to the shore," she added.

"So do I," said Anne. "It's a wonder we haven't met here before."

"Probably you come earlier in the evening than I do. It is generally late—almost dark—when I come. And I love to come just after a storm—like this. I don't like the sea so well when it's calm and quiet. I like the struggle—and the crash—and the noise."

"I love it in all its moods," declared Anne. "The sea at Four Winds is to me what Lover's Lane was at home. Tonight it seemed so free—so untamed—something broke loose in me, too, out of sympathy. That was why I danced along the shore in that wild way. I didn't suppose anybody was looking, of course. If Miss Cornelia Bryant had seen me she would have foreboded a gloomy prospect for Canadian men far afield."

"Ah, yes, shelter the men. You know Miss Cornelia?" said Leslie, laughing. She had an exquisite laugh; it bubbled up suddenly and unexpectedly with something of the delicious quality of a baby's. Anne laughed, too.

"Oh, yes. She has been down to my house of dreams several times."

"Your house of dreams?"

"Oh, that's a dear, foolish little name I have for my home. I just call it that for myself. It slipped out before I thought."

"So Miss Russell's little white house is _your_ house of dreams," said Leslie wonderingly. " _I_ had a house of dreams once—but it was a palace," she added, with a laugh, the sweetness of which was marred by a little note of derision.

"Oh, I once dreamed of a palace, too," said Anne. "I suppose all girls do. And then we settle down contentedly in eight-room houses that seem to fulfill all the desires of our hearts—because our princess is there. _You_ should have had your palace really, though—you are so beautiful. You _must_ let me say it—it has to be said—I'm nearly bursting with admiration. You are the loveliest thing I ever saw, Mrs. Moore."

"If we are to be friends you must call me Leslie," said the other with an odd passion.

"Of course I will. And _my_ friends call me Anne."

"I suppose I am beautiful," Leslie went on, looking stormily out to sea. "I hate my beauty. I wish I had always been as dull and plain as the dullest and plainest girl at the fishing village over there. Well, what do you think of Miss Cornelia?"

The abrupt change of subject shut the door on any further confidences.

"Miss Cornelia is a darling, isn't she?" said Anne. "I was invited to her house to a state tea last week. You've heard of groaning tables."

"I seem to recall seeing the expression in the newspaper reports of weddings," said Leslie, smiling.

"Well, Miss Cornelia's groaned—at least, it creaked—positively. You couldn't have believed she would have cooked so much for two ordinary people. She had every kind of pie you could name, I think—except lemon pie. She said she had taken the prize for lemon pies at the Charlottetown Exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since for fear of losing her reputation for them."

"Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?"

"I wasn't, but it wasn’t for lack of trying—I won't tell you how much. But the passion of my attempt seemed to warm her heart regardless. She said she never knew a man who didn't like pie better than his Bible, and that one should be sorry to love a woman whose pies were for her stomach and not the table. I said another woman would understand! Do you know, I love Miss Cornelia."

"So do I," said Leslie. "She is the best friend I have in the world."

Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss Cornelia had never mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her. Miss Cornelia had certainly talked freely about every other individual in or near Four Winds.

"Isn't that beautiful?" said Leslie, after a brief silence, pointing to the exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the rock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base. "If I had come here—and seen nothing but just that—I would go home satisfied."

"The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful," agreed Anne. "My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sit at its window and feast my eyes. The colors and shadows are never the same two minutes together."

"And you are never lonely?" asked Leslie abruptly. "Never—when you are alone?"

"No. I don't think I've ever been really lonely in my life," answered Anne. "Even when I'm alone I have real good company—dreams and imaginations and pretendings. I _like_ to be alone now and then, just to think over things and _taste_ them. But I love friendship—and nice, jolly little times with people. Oh, _won't_ you come to see me—often? Please do. I believe," Anne added, laughing, "that you'd like me if you knew me."

"I wonder if _you_ would like _me_ ," said Leslie seriously. She was not fishing for a compliment. She looked out across the waves that were beginning to be garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyes filled with shadows.

"I'm sure I would," said Anne. "And please don't think I'm utterly irresponsible because you saw me dancing on the shore at sunset. No doubt I shall be dignified after a time. You see, I haven't lived alone very long. I feel like a girl, and sometimes like a child, yet."

"I have been married twelve years," said Leslie.

Here was another unbelievable thing.

"Why, you can't be as old as I am!" exclaimed Anne. "You must have been a child when you were married."

"I was sixteen," said Leslie, rising, and picking up the cap and jacket lying beside her. "I am twenty-eight now. Well, I must go back."

"So must I. But I'm so glad we both came to the shore tonight and met each other."

Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled. She had offered friendship frankly but it had not been accepted very graciously, if it had not been absolutely repelled. In silence they climbed the cliffs and walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery, bleached, wild grasses were like a carpet of creamy velvet in the moonlight. When they reached the shore lane Leslie turned.

"I go this way, Miss Shirley. You will come over and see me some time, won't you?"

Anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her. She got the impression that Leslie Moore gave it reluctantly.

"I will come if you really want me to," she said a little coldly.

"Oh, I do—I do," exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness which seemed to burst forth and beat down some restraint that had been imposed on it.

"Then I'll come. Good-night—Leslie."

"Good-night, Miss Shirley."

Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her tale to Gog and Magog.

"She is certainly very different from the other women about here. You can't talk about eggs and butter to _her_. I don't believe her case is so ordinary. It is a thing quite apart from her beauty. I feel that she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might enter as into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars every one out and shuts all her possibilities up in herself, so that they cannot develop and blossom. There, I've been struggling to define her to myself ever since I left her, and that is the nearest I can get to it."

##  2: Dream Home

Leslie came over to the house of dreams one frosty October night, when moonlit mists were hanging over the harbor and curling like silver ribbons along the seaward glens. She looked as if she repented coming when Anne answered her knock; but Anne pounced on her, and drew her in.

"I'm so glad you picked tonight for a call," she said gaily. "I made up a lot of extra good fudge this afternoon and we want someone to help us eat it—before the fire—while we tell stories. Perhaps Captain Jim will drop in, too. This is his night."

"No. Captain Jim is over home," said Leslie. "He—he made me come here," she added, half defiantly.

"I'll say a thank-you to him for that when I see him," said Anne, pulling easy chairs before the fire.

"Oh, I don't mean that I didn't want to come," protested Leslie, flushing a little. "I—I've been thinking of coming—but it isn't always easy for me to get away."

"Of course it must be hard for you to leave Mr. Moore," said Anne, in a matter-of-fact tone. She had decided that it would be best to mention Dick Moore occasionally as an accepted fact, and not give undue morbidness to the subject by avoiding it. She was right, for Leslie's air of constraint suddenly vanished. Evidently she had been wondering how much Anne was concerned with the conditions of her life and was relieved that no explanations were needed. She allowed her cap and jacket to be taken, and sat down with a girlish snuggle in the big armchair by Magog. She was dressed prettily and carefully, with the customary touch of color in the scarlet geranium at her white throat. Her beautiful hair gleamed like molten gold in the warm firelight. Her sea-blue eyes were full of soft laughter and allurement. For the moment, under the influence of the little house of dreams, she was a girl again—a girl forgetful of the past and its bitterness. The atmosphere of the woman that had sanctified the little house was all about her; the companionship of a healthy, happy, young woman of her own generation encircled her; she felt and yielded to the magic of her surroundings—Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim would scarcely have recognized her; Anne found it hard to believe that this was the cold, unresponsive woman she had met on the shore—this animated girl who talked and listened with the eagerness of a starved soul. And how hungrily Leslie's eyes looked at the bookcases between the windows!

"My library isn't very extensive," said Anne, "but every book in it is a _friend_. I've picked my books up through the years, here and there, never buying one until I had first read it and knew that it belonged to the race of Joseph."

Leslie laughed—beautiful laughter that seemed akin to all the mirth that had echoed through the little house in the vanished years.

"I have a few books of father's—not many," she said. "I've read them until I know them almost by heart. I don't get many books. There's a circulating library at the Glen store—but I don't think the committee who pick the books for Mr. Parker know what books are of Joseph's race—or perhaps they don't care. It was so seldom I got one I really liked that I gave up getting any."

"I hope you'll look on my bookshelves as your own," said Anne. "You are entirely and wholeheartedly welcome to the loan of any book on them."

"You are setting a feast of fat things before me," said Leslie, joyously. Then, as the clock struck ten, she rose, half unwillingly.

"I must go. I didn't realize it was so late. Captain Jim is always saying it doesn't take long to stay an hour. But I've stayed two—and oh, but I've enjoyed them," she added frankly.

"Come often," said Anne. She had risen and stood in the firelight's glow. Leslie looked at her—youthful, hopeful, happy, typifying all she had missed and must forever miss. The light went out of her face and eyes; the girl vanished; it was the sorrowful, cheated woman who answered the invitation almost coldly and got herself away with a pitiful haste.

Anne watched her until she was lost in the shadows of the chill and misty night. Then she turned slowly back to the glow of her own radiant hearthstone.

 _"Isn't she lovely? Her hair fascinates me. Miss Cornelia says it reaches to her feet. Ruby Gillis had beautiful hair—but Leslie's is alive—every thread of it is living gold_ , _"_ thought Anne.

##  3: A Living Book

Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Anne Shirley told him of her plan. At last his cherished dream was to be realized and his "life-book" given to the world. He was also pleased that the story of lost Margaret should be woven into it.

"It will keep her name from being forgotten," she said wistfully.

"That's why I want it put in."

"We'll collaborate," cried Anne delightedly. "You will give the soul and I the body. Oh, we'll write a famous book between us, Captain Jim. And we'll get right to work."

"And to think my book is to be writ by the stranger who blew into town!" exclaimed Captain Jim. "Lady, I see now why I had to wait so long. It couldn't be writ till the right man come—and it was a woman all along. You _belong_ here—you've got the soul of this old north shore in you—you're the only one who _could_ write it."

It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room at the lighthouse should be given over to Anne for a workshop. It was necessary that Captain Jim should be near her as she wrote, for consultation upon many matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which Anne was quite ignorant.

She began work on the book the very next morning, and flung herself into it heart and soul. As for Captain Jim, he was a happy man that summer. He looked upon the little room where Anne worked as a sacred shrine. Anne talked everything over with Captain Jim, but she would not let him see the manuscript.

"You must wait until it is published," she said. "Then you'll get it all at once in its best shape."

She delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them freely. She dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a vivid reality to her and lived in her pages. As the book progressed it took possession of her and she worked at it with feverish eagerness. She let Leslie read the manuscript and criticize it; and the concluding chapter of the book, which the critics, later on, were pleased to call idyllic, was modelled upon a suggestion of Leslie's.

Leslie fairly hugged herself with delight over the success of this partnership.

"I knew when I read _Averil’s Atonement_ that you was the very one for it," she told Anne. "Both humor and passion were in Perceval’s disposition, and that, together with your art of expression, was just what was necessary for the writing of such a book. You predestined for the part."

Anne Shirley wrote in the mornings. The afternoons were generally spent in some merry outing with Leslie. Captain Jim called Dick to smoke and chat frequently, in order to set her free. They went boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers that flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and mussel-bakes on the rocks; they picked strawberries on the sand-dunes; they went out cod-fishing with Captain Jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and wild ducks in the cove—whatever they fancied. In the evenings they rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore fields under a golden moon, or they sat in the living room at the little house where often the coolness of the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked of the thousand and one things which happy, eager, clever young people can find to talk about.

Leslie had been a changed creature since they had spent this time together. There was no trace of her old coldness and reserve, no shadow of her old bitterness. The girlhood of which she had been cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and perfume; no laugh was readier than hers, no wit quicker, in the twilight circles of that enchanted summer. When she could not be with Anne they both felt that some exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse. Her beauty was illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine through a flawless vase of alabaster. There were hours when Anne's eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her.

All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer—one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going—one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doings, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.

"Too good to last," Anne told herself with a little sigh, on the September day when a certain nip in the wind and a certain shade of intense blue on the gulf water said that autumn was hard by.

That evening Anne Shirley told Jim and Leslie and Miss Cornelia Bryant that she had finished her book and that she must go to the city to see its publication through.

"I have a good deal to do to it yet—revising and pruning and so forth," she said, "but in the main it's done. I wrote the last sentence this morning. If I can find a publisher for it it will probably be out next summer or fall."

Anne had not much doubt that she would find a publisher. She knew that she had written a great book—a book that would score a wonderful success—a book that would _live_. She knew that it would bring her both fame and fortune; but when she had written the last line of it she had bowed her head on the manuscript and so sat for a long time. And her thoughts were not of the good work she had done.

##  4: Lavender

In the evening Anne went over to see Leslie, but found nobody. The house was locked and there was no light in any window. It looked like a home left soulless. Leslie did not run over on the following day—which Anne thought a bad sign.

"I don't want to go to the cove—but I'll go over the channel, and roam about on the sand shore till you come back. The rock shore is too slippery and grim tonight," she said to Gog and Magog.

Alone on the sands of the bar Anne gave herself up to the eerie charm of the night. It was warm for September, and the late afternoon had been very foggy; but a full moon had in part lessened the fog and transformed the harbor and the gulf and the surrounding shores into a strange, fantastic, unreal world of pale silver mist, through which everything loomed phantom-like. Captain Josiah Crawford's black schooner sailing down the channel, laden with potatoes for Bluenose ports, was a spectral ship bound for a far uncharted land, ever receding, never to be reached. The calls of unseen gulls overhead were the cries of the souls of doomed seamen. The little curls of foam that blew across the sand were elfin things stealing up from the sea-caves. The big, round-shouldered sand-dunes were the sleeping giants of some old northern tale. The lights that glimmered palely across the harbor were the delusive beacons on some coast of fairyland. Anne pleased herself with a hundred fancies as she wandered through the mist. It was delightful—romantic—mysterious to be roaming here alone on this enchanted shore.

But was she alone? Something loomed in the mist before her—took shape and form—suddenly moved towards her across the wave-rippled sand.

"Leslie!" exclaimed Anne in amazement. "Whatever are you doing— _here_ —tonight?"

"If it comes to that, whatever are _you_ doing here?" said Leslie, trying to laugh. The effort was a failure. She looked very pale and tired; but the love locks under her scarlet cap were curling about her face and eyes like little sparkling rings of gold.

"Nothing in particular. I intended to stay at the light, but Captain Jim is away."

"Well, _I_ came here because I wanted to walk—and walk—and _walk_ ," said Leslie restlessly. "I couldn't on the rock shore—the tide was too high and the rocks prisoned me. I had to come here—or I should have gone mad, I think. I rowed myself over the channel in Captain Jim's flat. I've been here for an hour. Come—come—let us walk. I can't stand still. Oh, Anne!"

"Leslie, dearest, what is the trouble?" asked Anne, though she knew too well already.

"I can't tell you—don't ask me. I wouldn't mind your knowing—I wish you did know—but I can't tell you—I can't tell anyone. I've been such a fool, Anne—and oh, it hurts so terribly to be a fool. There's nothing so painful in the world."

She laughed bitterly. Anne slipped her arm around her.

"Leslie, is it that you have learned to love me?"

Leslie turned herself about passionately.

"How did you know?" she cried. "Anne, how did you know? Oh, is it written in my face for everyone to see? Is it as plain as that?"

"No, no. I—I can't tell you how I knew. It just came into my mind, somehow. Leslie, don't look at me like that!"

"Do you despise me?" demanded Leslie in a fierce, low tone. "Do you think I'm wicked—unwomanly? Or do you think I'm just plain fool?"

"I don't think you any of those things. Come, dear, let's just talk it over sensibly, as we might talk over any other of the great crises of life. You've been brooding over it and let yourself drift into a morbid view of it. You know you have a little tendency to do that about everything that goes wrong, and you promised me that you would fight against it."

"But—oh, it's so—so shameful," murmured Leslie. "To love you—unsought—and when I'm not free to love anybody."

"There's nothing shameful about it. But I'm very sorry that you have learned to care for me, because, as things are, it will only make you more unhappy."

"I didn't _learn_ to care," said Leslie, walking on and speaking passionately. "If it had been like that I could have prevented it. I never dreamed of such a thing until that day, a week ago, when you told me you had finished your book and must soon go away. Then—then I knew. I felt as if someone had struck me a terrible blow. I didn't say anything—I couldn't speak—but I don't know what I looked like. I'm so afraid my face betrayed me. Oh, I would die of shame."

Anne was miserably silent, hampered by her deductions and uncharacteristic trepidation in the face of this dangerous conversation. Leslie went on feverishly, as if she found relief in speech.

"I was so happy all this summer, Anne—happier than I ever was in my life. I thought it was because everything had been made clear between you and me, and that it was our friendship which made life seem so beautiful and full once more. And it WAS, in part—but not all—oh, not nearly all. I know now why everything was so different. And now you must reject me—and Dick has been betrayed. How can I live, Anne? When I turned back into the house this morning without you the solitude struck me like a blow in the face."

"It won't seem so hard by and by, dear," said Anne, who always felt the pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent words of comforting. Besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.

"Oh, it seems to me it will grow harder all the time," said Leslie miserably. "I've nothing to look forward to. Morning will come after morning—and you will not come to me—you must never come back. Oh, when I think that I should never see you again I feel as if a great brutal hand had twisted itself among my heartstrings, and was wrenching them. Once, long ago, I dreamed of love—and I thought it must be beautiful—and _now_ —its like _this_. When you went away yesterday morning you were so cold and indifferent. You said 'Good-bye, Mrs. Moore' in the coldest tone in the world—as if we had not even been friends—as if I meant absolutely nothing to you. I know I don't—my feelings are not your fault—but you _might_ have been a little kinder."

 _"Oh, I wish the words could come,"_ thought Anne. She was racked between her sympathy for Leslie and the necessity of avoiding anything that would betray the order of things. She knew why their relationship must cool—why it could not have the cordiality that their affection demanded—but she could not tell Leslie.

"I couldn't help it, Anne—I couldn't help it," said poor Leslie.

"I know that."

"Do you blame me so very much?"

"I don't blame you at all."

"And you won't—you won't tell?"

"Leslie! Do you think I would do such a thing?"

"Oh, I don't know—you and the whole world are such _chums_. I don't see how you could help telling everything."

"Everything about my own concerns—yes. But not my friends' secrets."

"I couldn't have _them_ know. But I'm glad _you_ know. I would feel guilty if there were anything I was ashamed to tell you. I hope Miss Cornelia won't find out. Sometimes I feel as if those terrible, kind brown eyes of hers read my very soul. Oh, I wish this mist would never lift—I wish I could just stay in it forever, hidden away from every living being. I don't see how I can go on with life. This summer has been so full. I never was lonely for a moment. Before you came my life was dominated by duties to my husband. Since you’ve come my complete bliss—when I had been with you—could only be followed by the horrible moment I had to leave you. You would walk away and I would walk away _alone_. And _now!_ I just seem to be one great pain all over and everything hurts me. Oh, I suppose I must reconcile myself to being the odd one again. Yes, I've been a fool. Let's have done talking about my folly. You know me now, Anne—the worst of me—the barriers are all down. I'll never bore you with it again."

"You are coming back with me," said Anne, who had no intention of leaving Leslie to wander alone ever again. "There's plenty of room in my boat for you."

Even in the twilight Anne could see the sudden whiteness that swept over her beautiful face, blotting out the crimson of lip and cheeks. Leslie, one moment a fountain of bitter tears and what she _knew_ to be nonsense, the next had become so impossibly quiet. She was so like that night they first met and yet permanently changed. A storm had been raging behind her eyes and the struggle and the crash of her soul against Anne’s shores had yet to subside with its ebbing. The arm Anne clutched was cold.

“I don’t see how you could love me when I was such a fool,” said Leslie, finally.

“Well, I tried to stop,” said Anne frankly, “not because I thought you what you call yourself, but because I felt sure there was no chance for me with Dick Moore on the scene on top of . . . who we must be. But I couldn’t—and I can’t tell you, either, what it’s meant to me these months spent between just us. I have had many dear and beloved friends—but there is a something in you, Leslie, that I never found in anyone else. You have more to offer me in that rich nature of yours, and I have more to give you than I had in my careless girlhood. Leslie, you are an adorable goose.”

Leslie laughed—then shivered.

“I can never forget the night I met you here, Anne. Oh, I knew—I _knew_ then—and I thought it so impossible.”

“But it wasn’t, sweetheart. Oh, Leslie, this makes up for everything, doesn’t it? Let’s resolve to keep this day sacred to perfect beauty all our lives for the gift it has given us. Take off your tragic airs, my love, and fold them up and put them away in lavender. You'll never need them again. I am not a prophetess, but I shall venture on a prediction. The bitterness of life is over for you. After this you are going to have the joys and hopes—and I daresay the sorrows, too—of a happy woman.”

“It’s the birthday of our happiness,” said Leslie softly. “I’ve always loved this shore, and now it will be dearer than ever.” Then a pause, a downcast glance, suggesting premature mourning. “But I’ll have to ask you to wait a long time, Anne,” said Leslie sadly. “It may be a long time before I convince Mr. Moore to grant a divorce. And even then there will be no diamond sunbursts and marble halls with another woman.”

Anne laughed. They clasped hands and smiled at each other through the tears that filled the gray eyes and the blue.

“I don’t want sunbursts and marble halls. I just want _you_. Sunbursts and marble halls may be all very well, but there is more ‘scope for imagination’ without them. What’s more valuable to the authoress? And as for the waiting, that doesn’t matter. We’ll just be happy, waiting and working for each other—and dreaming. Oh, dreams will be very sweet now.”

Leslie drew her close to her and kissed her. Then they walked home together in the dusk, crowned queens in the bridal realm of love, along winding paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew.

##  5: The First And The Second

Anne wakened on the morning of her wedding day to find the sunshine winking in at the window of the little porch gable and a September breeze frolicking with her curtains.

"I'm so glad the sun will shine on me," she thought happily.

She recalled the first morning she had wakened in that little porch room, when the sunshine had crept in on her through the blossom-drift of the old Snow Queen. That had not been a happy wakening, for it brought with it the bitter disappointment of the preceding night. But since then the little room had been endeared and consecrated by years of happy childhood dreams and maiden visions. To it she had come back joyfully after all her absences. Many vigils of joy and some of sorrow had been kept there; and today she must leave it forever. Yet it was hers no more; fifteen-year-old Dora inherited it when she had gone. Nor did Anne wish it otherwise; the little room was sacred to youth and girlhood—this was but a stop on the road of womanhood, a respite with the kind Dora’s permission, and yet it was more. It was the end of her solitude, or as much solitude as one such as Anne ever had; her chapter of wifehood began today.

Green Gables was a busy and joyous house that forenoon. Diana arrived early, instructed not to inform Fred, with the Young Fred and Small Anne Cordelia to lend a hand. Davy and Dora, the Green Gables twins, whisked the babies off to the garden.

"Don't let Small Anne Cordelia spoil her clothes," warned Diana anxiously.

"You needn't be afraid to trust her with Dora," said Marilla. "That child is more sensible and careful than most of the mothers I've known. She's really a wonder in some ways. Not much like that other harum-scarum I brought up."

Marilla smiled across her chicken salad at Anne. It might even be suspected that she liked the harum-scarum best after all.

"Those twins are real nice children," said Mrs. Rachel, when she was sure they were out of earshot. "Dora is so womanly and helpful, and Davy is developing into a very smart boy. He isn't the holy terror for mischief he used to be."

"I never was so distracted in my life as I was the first six months he was here," acknowledged Marilla. "After that I suppose I got used to him. He's taken a great notion to farming lately, and wants me to let him try running the farm next year. I may, for Mr. Barry doesn't think he'll want to rent it much longer, and some new arrangement will have to be made."

"Well, you certainly have a lovely day for your wedding, Anne," said Diana, as she slipped a voluminous apron over her silken array. "You couldn't have had a finer one if you'd ordered it from Eaton's."

"Indeed, there's too much money going out of this Island to that same Eaton's," said Mrs. Lynde indignantly. She had strong views on the subject of octopus-like department stores, and never lost an opportunity of airing them. "And as for those catalogues of theirs, they're the Avonlea girls' Bible now, that's what. They pore over them on Sundays instead of studying the Holy Scriptures."

"Well, they're splendid to amuse children with," said Diana. "Fred and Small Anne look at the pictures by the hour."

" _I_ amused ten children without the aid of Eaton's catalogue," said Mrs. Rachel severely.

"Come, you two, don't quarrel over Eaton's catalogue," said Anne gaily. "This is my day of days, you know. I'm so happy I want every one else to be happy, too."

"I'm sure I hope your happiness will last, child," sighed Mrs. Rachel. She did hope it truly, and believed it, but she was afraid it was in the nature of a challenge to Providence to flaunt your happiness too openly. Anne, for her own good, must be toned down a trifle.

But it was a happy and beautiful bride who came down the old, homespun-carpeted stairs that September noon—the first bride of Green Gables, slender and shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with her arms full of roses. Leslie awaited in the hall below, arrayed in her bridal white, her blonde locks frosted over with the film of her own veil. The second bride of Green Gables looked up with adoring eyes. She was hers at last, this evasive, long-sought Anne, won against the odds. It was to her she was coming in the sweet embrace of the bride. Was she worthy of her? Could she make her as happy as she hoped? If she failed her—if she could not measure up to her standard of a partner—then, as she held out her hand, their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad certainty. Wouldn’t Captain Jim say the Creator probably knew how to run His universe quite as well as we do? They belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might hold for them, it could never alter that. Their happiness was in each other's keeping and both were unafraid.

They were married in the sunshine of the old orchard, circled by the loving and kindly faces of Anne’s long-familiar friends. Mrs. Wright married them, as one unorthodox turn deserved another, and the trusted Reverend Jonas Blake (with a wink to his beloved Phillipa’s dalliances) made what Mrs. Rachel Lynde afterwards pronounced to be the “most beautiful wedding prayer” she had ever heard. Birds do not often sing in September, but one sang sweetly from some hidden bough while Anne and Leslie repeated their deathless vows. Anne heard it and thrilled to it; Leslie heard it, and wondered only that all the birds in the world had not burst into jubilant song; Paul heard it and later wrote a lyric about it which was one of the most admired in his first volume of verse; Charlotta the Fourth heard it and was blissfully sure it meant good luck for her adored Miss Shirley. The bird sang until the ceremony was ended and then it wound up with one mad little, glad little trill. Never had the old gray-green house among its enfolding orchards known a blither, merrier afternoon. All the old jests and quips that must have done duty at weddings since Eden were served up, and seemed as new and brilliant and mirth-provoking as if they had never been uttered before. Laughter and joy had their way; and when Anne and Leslie left to catch the Carmody train, with Paul as driver, the twins were ready with rice and old shoes, in the throwing of which Charlotta the Fourth and Gilbert bore a valiant part. Marilla stood at the gate and watched the carriage out of sight down the long lane with its banks of goldenrod. Anne turned at its end to wave her good-bye, now the last. She was gone again—that house of dreams was her home and even an occasion as joyous as this was temporary; Marilla's face looked very gray and old as she turned to the house which Anne had filled for fourteen years, and even in her absence, with light and life.

* * *

Anne never tired of the loveliness of the view that broke upon them when they had driven over the hill behind the village. Her home could not yet be seen; but before her lay Four Winds Harbor like a great, shining mirror of rose and silver. Far down, she saw its entrance between the bar of sand dunes on one side and a steep, high, grim, red sandstone cliff on the other. Beyond the bar the sea, calm and austere, dreamed in the afterlight. The little fishing village, nestled in the cove where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore, looked like a great opal in the haze. The sky over them was like a jewelled cup from which the dusk was pouring; the air was crisp with the compelling tang of the sea, and the whole landscape was infused with the subtleties of a sea evening. A few dim sails drifted along the darkening, fir-clad harbor shores. A bell was ringing from the tower of a little white church on the far side; mellowly and dreamily sweet, the chime floated across the water blent with the moan of the sea. The great revolving light on the cliff at the channel flashed warm and golden against the clear northern sky, a trembling, quivering star of good hope. Far out along the horizon was the crinkled gray ribbon of a passing steamer's smoke.

"Oh, beautiful, beautiful," murmured Anne. "I shall love you forever, Leslie. Where is our house?" Then she added suddenly:

"Oh, Leslie, I wish everybody could be as happy as we are."

The night winds were beginning their wild dances beyond the bar and the fishing hamlet across the harbor was gemmed with lights as Anne and Leslie Shirley-Moore drove up the poplar lane. The door of the little house opened, and a warm glow of firelight flickered out into the dusk. Anne left the buggy with Leslie and led her into the garden, through the little gate between the ruddy-tipped firs, up the trim, red path to the sandstone step.

"Welcome home," Leslie whispered on matching Anne’s pace, and hand in hand they stepped over the threshold of their house of dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> First appeared in [_Uncollected: Lucy Maud Montgomery_](https://lethargilistic.itch.io/uncollected-lucy-maud-montgomery), a collection I published of Montgomery's public domain short stories which had yet to be reprinted.
> 
> Yes, the piece is plagiaristic. It's my favorite plagiarism I've done yet. I drew out the sapphic subtext that was already there and made it text. Doing so also suggested some things I consider straight-up story improvements that just Make Sense like having Anne write the damn Life Book instead of introducing He Who Must Not Be Named to do what the heroine could have done herself.
> 
> For thoughts in favor of plagiarism, check out my writing elsewhere: ["What is Plagiarism?"](https://dev.to/lethargilistic/what-is-plagiarism-54gd), ["Copyright Holders Are Landlords And It's Not OK"](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3637125), ["The Academic Bates Motel"](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3638700).


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